1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of network communications. More specifically, the present invention relates to improving security and safety before transmitting Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) over a network in which URLs may be used in malevolent ways.
2. The Related Art
There are a wide variety of resources available on networks such as the Internet. For example, e-mail, file transfer, instant messaging, web page, and other services are available on networks. In order to identify a desired network resource, each network resource is associated with a unique identifier called a “Uniform Resource Locator” (URL) or a “Uniform Resource Identifier” (URI) (called collectively herein, “Uniform Resource Locators” or “URLs”). A number of protocols use Uniform Resource Locators such as, for example, HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP), HyperText Transport Protocol Secure (HTTPS), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), and WebTV Protocol (WTVP) among many others.
Displayable documents are often downloaded over networks. These displayable documents often include markup language that defines the layout and content of the document as displayed. In addition, the markup language typically includes URLs that are associated with a selectable icon that is displayed. Thus, when a user selects the displayed icon, the browser generates a request for the associated URL.
The following is an example of how this association may be established using HyperText Markup Language (HTML):                <a href=“maildefault.html”>E-mail</a>        
In this example, the text string “maildefault.html” is the terminal portion of the URL with the remainder of the URL determined by the context of the tag in the HTML document. The text “E-mail” would be displayed in a fashion that identifies the text string as selectable. For example, the text string “E-mail” may be underlined and/or in a different color. By selecting the string “E-mail”, the browser automatically generates a request for the corresponding URL.
By including selectable URLs in displayable documents, network navigation is facilitated. Unfortunately, sometimes, malevolent individuals may discover the URLs in a displayable document. In some cases, those URLs may be used to breach the security of the server computer system that provides the service identified by the URL. For example, a malicious individual may embed the URL in a script language that includes executable instructions requesting that a server perform harmful actions on services identified by the URL. The malicious individual might then transmit the script language back to the server, which may result in the server performing the harmful actions.
Therefore, what are desired are systems, methods, computer program products, and data structures that increase network security when transferring documents containing URLs over a network.